Library closed today through Sept. 7

Posted by Geeky Swedes on August 30th, 2010

Just a reminder that the Ballard Library (5614 22nd Ave NW) and all other Seattle Public Libraries are closed today and won’t reopen until Tuesday, September 7th. Budget cuts forced the closure. The good news is that no overdue fines will add up during this time. For a list of things you won’t be able to do, click here.
Meanwhile, crews are pressure washing parts of the building, which explains the fencing and “sidewalk closed” signs along the north side of the facility.

when was the last time you actually went to the ballard library? my wife and I go often with our kids and have never really noticed any “homeless” people, just a lot of kids and other people who don't appear to be homeless.

then again, i never actually went up to anybody and asked them if they were homeless or not. but i guess you have.

Hey, gobigblue, don't go gettin' in the way of yet another opportunity for someone to trash the homeless. It IS their Constitutional or God-given or (fill-in-the-blank) right, apparently. And this Forum just wouldn't be the same without it (again, apparently).

I use the library weekly and trust me they are there. You just seem to have a higher diversity/tolerance level. Never the less, they don't interfere with my library experience. The underbelly of living in a big city I guess.

actually, fred, according to estimates made by the US census bureau, seattle is the 23rd most populated city in the country. seattle has more residents than denver, nashville, milwaukee, miami, cincinatti, minneapolis, and washington, d.c. among others

i'm curious as to how many of these “hobos” you have actually confirmed are “homeless”?

back before ballard became inundated with hipsters and condos, the “drunk/disheveled/disorderly” you would see walking around Ballard were all fisherman who were between trips and frequented bars like the Vasa, the (0ld) Sunset, and the Smoke Shop. they lived in the hotels and rooms above the shops on Ballard Ave, which have since been converted into “luxury loft apartments”.

willing to bet many of the people you think are hobos are those same fisherman.

I've lived in Ballard for 25 years. I also worked in the fishing industry for a few.

It's true that Ballard has always had a few drunks, a few sketchy characters, and yes a few of them were guys waiting for their next trip.

Used to be you would see a few of the drunks now and then, but they would 1) be off fishing for months at a time, and 2) were reasonably discreet about hanging out in public and utilizing public resources (like the library bathroom).

But things are different now.

Now, the bums are a permanent fixture. These are not guys waiting for the next trip out to Dutch Harbor. They have moved in to stay, not waiting for (or looking for) work. It's their chosen lifestyle, permanent. The living is easy in Ballard, they can behave any way they like, lay around drunk every day, and nobody's going to hassle them – they know this. The bums who have taken over Ballard (and I do not use that term lightly) now act like they own the place (and who can blame them? It's been demonstrated that there are no consequences for their behavior). They are brazen, they challenge others and are purposefully “in your face” (like the drunken idiot who stopped in the middle of 22nd yesterday, blocking traffic, ranting and cursing at the cars trying to drive around him).

These are not the “old Ballard” bums. These losers have settled on Ballard as their shangri-la. And those who regard every drunken, foul-smelling creep in the library as just some poor, harmless homeless person who just needs a break are responsible for Ballard becoming the bum magnet that it now is.

used to live on ballard ave and had to chase away numerous drunk fisherman who would hang out in the alley behind the sunset, smoke shop, etc. they would urinate in the alley, which was behind my apartment's “back porch” and try to get in when I held parties. they would also wake us up with all the noise they made. sure, they were at sea for months at a time, but unless the fishing season ran 12 months a year, they were also roaming ballard ave for weeks at a time between trips.

the reason there are so many bums in ballard has nothing to do with people thinking of every “drunken, foul-smelling creep in the library as just some poor, harmless homeless person who just needs a break”

ballard is now the #1 drinking destination in seattle (as per a friend in the liquor-sales business). being the #1 drinking destination lures the bums because they know that people coming out of bars (drunk) are sympathetic and will give them money.

ballard has replaced pioneer square (which used to be seattle's #1 drinking destination) as the bums favorite palce to hang out because of all the bars. “old ballard” bums, “new ballard” bums, what's the difference. they new bums cause the same problems the old ones did.

maybe there are more of them or maybe because there are so many more people living and shopping in ballard now, they're just now being noticed more by more people.